Published , by Bryan Lefler
Published , by Bryan Lefler
Recent Microsoft acquisition Ninja Theory announced it is pulling support for Bleeding Edge, the multi-player online combat game less than one year after releasing it to the world. A full slate of new projects is the given reason for cutting off future content updates. The announcement comes via the official Bleeding Edge Twitter account as of 9 a.m. PT on January 28, 2021.
Debuting on March 24, 2020, Bleeding Edge surprised Xbox One and Windows gamers everywhere with its fast and frantic teamplay featuring an eclectic cast of 13 characters. Born from the lingering ideas leftover from Kung Fu Chaos, Ninja Theory presented a game primarily focused on brutal 4v4 melee brawls against competition that was seemingly all shooters. Perhaps this was a factor in the declining player base seen since release, numbers are not available for Microsoft owned platforms, but the performance on Steam speaks for itself with less than a thousand peak lifetime players and an average of only 4 in the last 30 days.
The silver lining behind the bad news for any remaining fans of the very fun and overlooked arena brawler is that Ninja Theory will now be putting full focus into new projects such as the gorgeous looking Hellblade: Senua's Saga, follow up to the breakout hit Senua's Sacrifice. Project: MARA, the real-world mental terror experiment teased a little over a year ago, and The Insight Project, an effort to combine game design with clinical neuroscience, are also mentioned in the Twitter post that put a stop to the bleeding for Edge's development.
Ninja Theory also stresses that the game will still be playable on Xbox and PC for the foreseeable future, and thanks everyone for causing chaos in their cyberpunk dystopian online basher. We at Shacknews love Bleeding Edge and encourage anyone with Xbox Game Pass to give the team combat game a spin. For more insight on Bleeding Edge and the development process, check out our developer interview stream with Ninja Theory on YouTube.